


Called

by Idrelle_Miocovani



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Contemplating one's own death, Drama, F/M, Impending Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 05:05:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17237927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idrelle_Miocovani/pseuds/Idrelle_Miocovani
Summary: King Alistair had given up the life of a Grey Warden, but he effects of his choice are never very far away. When he hears the Calling, he must learn to make important decisions for the good of his realm.





	Called

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this tumblr post](http://rederiswrites.tumblr.com/post/172501607091/rederiswrites-i-think-a-lot-about-the-fact-that) by @rederiswrites about Alistair hearing the false Calling as King of Ferelden.
> 
> This story takes place in a world state where the HOF was a Cousland who romanced Alistair and performed the ultimate sacrifice.

In the first month, it came to him at night. 

It was faint at first, barely more than whisper. He thought his mind was playing tricks on him, that some part of his imagination still clung to a dissipating dream. Then he thought it was revellers down by the harbour, their music drifting all the way up to the castle. Unlikely, but not impossible. It wouldn’t be the first time, he told himself. Even revellers could play a creepy tune once in a while.   

But when he rolled over and shook Anora awake to ask if she could hear it too, he froze when she gave him a puzzled look. 

“What music?” she said, eyes barely open. “You’re imagining things, Alistair. Go back to bed.” 

He did not sleep that night. 

The music grew, building in his head like the pressure of a migraine. At first, he could ignore it. Whenever he heard its pull, he found any excuse to strike up a conversation about anything and everything. The politics of the throne room were the best—there was always plenty to argue about there, and for a solid three weeks he threw himself into work with unprecedented determination. He organized luncheons with the arls, held a week-long summit with the Dalish, and discussed the failing negotiations between mages and Templars with the First Enchanter. Anora was practically beaming by the end, and she made it very clear how attractive she found him when he took command. 

But as he lay in bed, his wife in is arms, the music slowly crept back into his head, sending uncontrollable shivers down his spine. He felt cold, clammy—not even Anora’s warmth could counter it. Somewhere deep in his mind, he knew already what was happening to him, but he could not bring himself to admit it. So he told himself that it was stress, that he had overworked himself, that it was just his imagination and it would go away in the morning. 

The nightmares started that night. 

He woke in a cold sweat and swung himself out of bed. He could barely remember the dream—ominous flashes of dark beings, a crystalline red light bursting forth—but his body was trembling as if he had a high fever. He choked, vomiting into the chamber pot, and slunk to the floor, lying prone on the rug by his bed, unable to move. The rug scratched his bare skin, coarse and uncomfortable, but he appreciated the tangible feeling. Somehow, it made him feel more real, more solid. 

It brought him back to reality. Took him away from the dream. 

Groaning, he forced himself up. He walked to the basin and splashed water on his face. He glanced at Anora. She slept peacefully, illuminated by a sliver of moonlight, her golden hair a wispy halo around her face. Alistair touched her hand, holding it fondly, and moved away. He would not disturb her rest tonight. 

He pulled on a robe and passed through the door, looking back at Anora. She turned in her sleep, rolling onto her side, a content smile playing on her lips. 

_I’ll have to tell her soon._  

He didn’t know how. He could barely admit what was happening to himself, let alone his wife. Let alone the Queen of Ferelden. 

He spent the rest of the night walking up and down the corridors of the palace, bare feet padding along cold stone, aimless and adrift. It was nearly dawn when he found himself climbing the steps of Fort Drakon. Guards saluted as he passed, quietly acknowledging their king’s night time wanderings without question. 

Alistair climbed, muscles screaming in protest as he took stair after stair. He wasn’t nearly as fit as he had been in his youth. He remembered the desperate climb, nearly ten years ago, and the fight to reach the archdemon at the top. 

The day _she_ stopped the Blight. 

Dawn broke as he reached the top of the tower. 

Alistair sun to his knees in the cold dawn air, the wind prickling his bare chest as his robe flapped around him. “Andreia.” 

It had been years since he had spoken her name aloud. 

_“Andreia.”_

Her name was bitter on his tongue. He raised his head, the newly dawned sun warming his face. “What do I do now?” he said quietly. “Tell me— _what do I do now?”_  

His hand clenched into a fist, nails digging into his skin. “You left me here. You gave me the responsibility to lead a nation. Did you even stop to consider what would happen in five years? Ten years? A Grey Warden on the throne—it was unthinkable for a reason. We’re warriors. We’re not meant to live, we’re meant to die. But you would know all about that, wouldn’t you? You died perfectly. Taking out that foul creature like it was part of your destiny.” 

A cloud passed over the rising sun, throwing the rooftop into shadow. 

“I can hear it, Andreia,” Alistair said. “The Calling. Or what I think is the Calling. I’m not sure. Maybe I’m not supposed to think about it. I’m not supposed to talk about it. I’m a king now, not a Grey Warden. You made sure of that.” 

Ten years. His life had been irrevocably shaped by the decisions of one woman. A woman he had fought beside, a woman he had trusted, a woman he had loved. A woman who was gone. She had red hair and brown eyes and she smelled like roses. 

These days, he couldn’t remember for certain what her face looked like. She was more a name than anything else. Andreia Cousland. Grey Warden. Hero of Fereldan. 

Saviour. 

“I wish I could talk to you,” Alistair said. “You always knew what to do. You’d distract me with a joke and then work out ten solutions to a problem while I wasn’t looking.” He paused, slowly getting to his feet. “Looks like you can’t help me anymore.” 

Alistair turned and made his way to the stairs. The sun broke out from behind the clouds, bright and gold. 

“Good chat, Andreia,” he murmured and descended back into the tower.

***

 In the second month, the nightmares were worse. 

He remembered very little upon waking, but they woke him at least twice per night, shaking and sweating. A pressure grew in his forehead, burrowing its way between his eyes. And always, always, there was the music. The eerie song, echoing in his ears. The song only he could hear. 

He carried on as he usually did, pretending nothing was wrong. But the servants knew. They saw how little he ate, how distracted he was. They saw him wandering the halls at night like a wraith. 

The whispers started, as whispers were wont to do. 

_The king is unwell._

_The king and queen are fighting._

_Their marriage is one of politics, not one of love. Why else would they not have an heir?_

_Heirs take time—_

_Not this much time. Ten years is a long time. They should have a nursery full of children by now—_

_Perhaps the queen is ill._

_Perhaps the queen is barren._

_She bore no children to Cailan. She will be the end of the Theirin line._   

Whispers. Court gossip. They were worse than the jostling and hazing that went on in the young ranks of the Grey Wardens. At least those were temporary. Rumours in a royal court could last for years. Plant one seed of doubt in a courtier’s mind and it took root faster than ivy covering a wall. 

Anora, surprisingly, was unperturbed. 

“I see an unpleasant rumour has come around again,” she said as mundanely as if she were discussing the weather. She sat by the window in their quarters, enjoying the afternoon sunlight as she sipped her tea. “Arlessa Henrietta seems to think I am barren.” 

Alistair glanced up from the stack of reports he was working through. The song murmured in his ears, but he ignored it, focusing on Anora’s voice. “Arlessa Henrietta is a shrew,” he said. 

“No, she’s a gossip, but I appreciate your attempt to shield me from her comments.” 

Alistair’s hand slipped, smudging ink across his report. “Anora... The court isn’t wrong to be concerned about an heir—” 

“We are young,” Anora replied. “I have many child-bearing years left. It will happen when the Maker sees fit, that I have no doubt.” 

“And if it doesn’t?” 

Anora frowned, her eyebrows knitting together dangerously. “Do you think this is my fault? Do you agree, husband, with the Arlessa and her ilk? That this is my problem and that I am the bane of the Theirin line—” 

Alistair stood up, hands slamming against the desk. “I think it’s a problem with me.” 

Anora’s eyes widened. “Oh,” she said. She sipped her tea. “Oh.” 

“You know that Grey Wardens are unlikely to have children,” Alistair said. “What if—” 

“But you are not a Grey Warden anymore.” 

“I spoke the words, I undertook the Joining. I am sworn to the Order for life, it’s not something I can simply _stop_ being—” 

“You are the King of Ferelden.”

_"And_ a Grey Warden,” Alistair said. “It’s in my blood. It’s as much a part of me as my heart and lungs.” 

Anora fell silent, sipping her tea. She avoided his eyes. 

Alistair sighed and returned to his reports, working in silence. The hum persisted in his ears, tugging, pulling at him. He read one sentence and then read it again. And three more times. He comprehended nothing. 

He couldn’t concentrate. He wanted to knock the hum out of his mind, but he knew he couldn’t. There wasn’t any way he could get it to stop. 

It was a part of him now and that terrified him. 

He glanced at Anora. She had finished her tea, but she still held her teacup in hand, fingering the cool porcelain. She pursed her lips, a small line of worry creasing her forehead. There was a time when they were first married when they could argue for hours. They had been two stubborn fools from different lives, obstinately butting heads over every little thing. They had both mellowed in time, learning how to pick their battles, knowing that there was a time and a place for every conversation and true communication began not with anger, but with understanding. 

Alistair pushed his chair away from his desk. “Anora—” 

“Yes?” She turned in her chair, looking over her shoulder. She looked almost… hopeful. 

“We can figure this out,” he said, crossing the room. He leaned against the window ledge and took her hand in his. “No matter what happens, I swear to you that I will never leave this kingdom to civil war. Whether the next king bears Theirin blood or not, we _will_ have an heir. This is not the end.” 

Anora’s thumb rubbed the back of his hand. “Then why are you talking like it is?”

 He laughed and ran a hand through his hair. “Figure of speech.” He caught her eye and smirked. “Even if we consider other options, I am not giving up on a child of our own.” 

“I can’t say I’m unhappy with that decision,” Anora said. 

The song thrummed in Alistair’s ears, louder than before. 

“Maybe we haven’t been trying hard enough,” he added, running a hand along Anora’s shoulder. He traced the edge of her neckline, his fingers leaving a trace of ink on her pale skin. 

Anora looked up at him, a wicked smirk playing on her lips. She clung to her tea cup, her tongue wetting her lower lip. “I’m willing to try as many times as we have to,” she said. 

Alistair seized her and pulled her into his arms. Anora gasped in surprise and dropped her teacup, the porcelain shattering on the floor. He carried her to bed, his mouth on hers, hands caressing her with a renewed intensity. 

For a moment, he drowned out the hum with panting and moaning and the wet, inelegant sound of sex. Instead of the song, there was the heat of her skin, the scratch of her fingernails against his back, the press of her lips against his. He moved inside her and they coasted towards oblivion, wiping all thought from his mind. 

There was only her and him and his hidden desperation. 

*** 

In the third month, he heard the song when he was both asleep and awake. 

It permeated every part of him. He tried to drink it away, but wine only made the song louder and his mind slower. He called musicians into the royal wing, hoping their talents could chase the song away, but he could feel it weaving its way into their rhythms and voices. 

Sex was his only reprieve. There was some enjoyment there, he thought bitterly, but how long would it be until even the act of lovemaking was taken from him?   

He slept little. He ate little. It took him longer to work his way through his reports. He relied more and more on his advisors, delegating work he had once been able to do in his sleep. He sent representatives to the Circle to help ease tensions about the Mage-Templar War. He listened to the complaints of the Bannorn and had an advisor draft his response. 

He spent so little time being king, he felt like an impostor. 

_You left me with this, Andreia,_ he thought. _You made me take the throne. Why did you think I was fit to be king? I told you I wasn’t. And now I’m going to die, ten years into my reign, without an heir to inherit the throne. Ferelden is barely back on her feet and now she’s going to break apart._  

Anora knew something wrong. It didn’t take a genius to figure it out. He was terrible at hiding it. But still, he couldn’t bring to tell her what was happening to him. As soon as he admitted it to her, he was welcoming the end. He had to stave it off for as long as he could. 

Not just for the country, but for Anora’s sake as well. The Blight had taken her first husband, and now it would take her second as well. 

She asked him, calmly, gently, in the mornings after they made love. He would shake his head and say he was fine, even though he was gripped with terror. The song sung true, pulling at him, calling him to the deep. 

His requiem. 

He tried to remember what Duncan told him, all those long years ago. Grey Wardens who knew their time had come found their deaths in the Deep Roads, fighting darkspawn. But what happened to those who couldn’t go to the Deep Roads? What happened then? Did madness take them? Were their minds so overcome by the terrible, terrible song that they lost all form of thought? 

Even now, he could feel parts of himself slipping away. What would happen when he could no longer hold it off, when he finally succumbed to the song? How would he die—a drooling, mindless mess in the corner of the palace? Or would he find the strength to end it earlier? 

_It should have been me, Andreia. It should have been me who killed the archdemon. Why did you have to die the hero’s death? Why did you…?_

He was always thinking of her now. She invaded his thoughts the way the song invaded his mind. He wasn’t sure what was worse. 

Regardless, he wanted them both gone. 

*** 

In the fourth month, he learned to live with terror. 

He remembered his dreams now. The images—red crystal, red light, so much red—were engraved in his mind’s eye. He saw monsters knew they were real and soon he would either join them or die. 

He woke screaming in the middle of the night. He sat straight up, panting, chest-heaving, covered in sweat. Anora woke and pushed herself up, resting a hand against his back. 

“Alistair? What is it? Are you all right?” 

“I…” The song thrummed in his ears. “I can’t… Anora, I can’t…” 

He wept. She took him in her arms and he clutched at her, weeping. She held him, no questions asked, and the familiarity of her warmth and presence was like a beacon of light. 

He rest his head against her chest. “Talk to me.” 

“About what?” 

“It… it doesn’t matter.” He closed his eyes, exhausted and trembling. “Anything. I want to hear your voice. It’s the only thing that drowns it out now.” 

She didn’t ask him what he meant. She looped her fingers through his and talked. About everything and anything. Anora didn’t babble, but she babbled now, running on about little things that didn’t matter. She told him stories her father had told her as a child. She made up new ones. She spoke about the intricacies of the Dwarven Merchants’ Guild and what Nevarra was like in the summer. She talked until her mouth ran dry, and still she kept talking. 

And Alistair wept. 

Finally, Anora’s voice ran hoarse. “Is that better?” she asked. 

Alistair opened his eyes. “For now, yes. Thank you.” 

A hundred questions shone in her eyes, but she didn’t ask one. 

“Are you going to tell me what’s happening to you?” 

“I…” 

“Alistair, I need to know.” She stroked his hair. “I need to know what’s happening to my husband. To my king.” 

He sighed and looked up, seeking her eyes. They were so bright, so blue. Beautiful. He had never told her how pretty her eyes were. 

“You have pretty eyes,” he croaked. 

Anora tilted her head. “Thank you?” 

“I… I might never get the chance to say it,” he said. “So I’m saying it now. Anora, you are beautiful and delightful and I—” 

She pressed a hand against his lips. “There will be plenty of chances to tell me everything that rattles through that mind of yours. But for now, all I want is for you to tell me what’s happening to you.” 

He looked away. “I… can’t explain it.” 

She gripped his arm, fingernails digging into his skin. “Try. Please.” 

But the hum had drowned out her words. 

_“Alistair.”_  

Her voice ripped through the song, sharp and piercing, snapping him out of it. He looked at her, the concern in her eyes, the fear in her face and he realized that she was confronting the possibility that she would have to carry on without him. 

“They call it the Calling,” he said quietly. “A Warden hears it when their time has come. Most go to the Deep Roads, to meet their end. The price we pay for our blighted blood. I never thought I would hear mine so soon, I thought there was more time, time to do what I needed… what you needed…” He trailed off. 

Anora’s hand held his tightly. 

“Ten years isn’t as long as I thought,” Alistair said and leaned his head against Anora’s chest. He could hear her heartbeat. For a moment, it was a brilliant chime, drowning out the song in his head. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” 

*** 

In the fifth month, he knew he was going to die. 

Convenient, that—considering the world had nearly ended. Or was close to ending. In the devastation of the Mage-Templar War, the Divine had called a peace summit at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. And then the temple exploded, a hole was ripped in the sky and Alistair swore he had seen enough of this kind of shit during the Blight and really all he wanted to do was go back to bed and put his head under the pillows. 

Southern Thedas was a mess, but at least it wasn’t his responsibility to clean it up. That belonged to the new Inquisition that had sprung up in the wake of the temple disaster. 

The humming was louder than ever and he was king only in name now. Anora took full responsibility for their joint duties. When shit when sideways at Redcliffe Castle with the Mage Rebellion (why was it always Redcliffe? And why was it always mages?), he put in a token appearance, with Anora at his side. He was coherent enough to sound like a king, but inside his head was pounding. 

He saw the monsters with his waking eyes. The song called to him. He itched to leave Ferelden, leave everything he knew. Go away. Walk into the deep. Find some peace in the darkness before he died. 

Sometimes he wondered what would happen if he just wandered off and never came back. 

He didn’t. Even though his mind was overrun by the Calling. Now that he had named it, spoke it aloud to Anora, he could call it what it was. In a way, what he had once feared now gave him strength. His death was inevitable. But he could put plans in motion to protect what he loved before he died. 

He seized his weaknesses and turned them into strengths. 

Sleep evaded him, so he put himself to work. He drafted a proclamation passing the sole rule of the country to Anora as his last wish, securing her place in the monarchy, heir or no heir. He mulled over the language, searching for loopholes, checking again and again that the logic was sound and could not be argued. 

He spent his evenings with his wife, talking late into the night. In a strange way, they were closer now than they had ever been in ten years of marriage. 

Thoughts of Andreia and her sacrifice invaded his mind. Every night, he re-lived that terrible day on the top of Fort Drakon. He could feel the heat of the archdemon’s fiery breath burning his skin. 

His dreams ran red, like the corrupted lyrium that now spread across southern Thedas. 

On the nights it was too much for him, Anora held him as he wept. 

Once, he thought he saw tears in her eyes, though she would never admit it. 

This was not the way his Calling was supposed to go. Years ago, when he thought about it, he imagined walking into the Deep Roads with nothing but his sword and shield and never looking back. It was supposed to be a lonely, honourable death, the kind reserved for the greatest of warriors who bore the greatest burdens. 

His imagination had been too limited. 

He had never thought his Calling would also bear the burden of a crown, a country and a legacy. 

He had done his best. 

Really, that was all he could do. 

He was so tired. 

All he could do now was wait for the end.


End file.
